Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

ICPUG · Joined: 24 Jul 2005 Posts: 1277 Location: UK

I'm conversing with PenguinPupLin via PM regarding the driver as it is not really specific to the Windows installer. If we get a means of disseminating the solution to others I'll announce it somewhere.

noryb009 · Joined: 20 Mar 2010 Posts: 509

voltaire · Joined: 23 Feb 2012 Posts: 2

Hi guys,

Forgive me for asking for a little support in here, but it probably won't get seen by the right people in the general area...

I'm trying to use the Windows installer because it's the only way with a IBM Thinkpad 570e which does not have any external drives, can't boot from USB or even PCMCIA, and doesn't have a network card. It originally came with Win98, but was upgraded to WinXP.

I installed the Puppy Linux 531.exe in WinXP and the Windows part of it went through with no problems. After reboot, it couldn't find the .sfs file.
So then I tried Quickset_Wary_Puppy_Linux_511.exe (after uninstall/reboot of previous attempt) and the Windows part also installed without a hitch, but upon reboot got basically the same error as the 531 install. At the splash screen whether I choose to "Load Save File" or not, I get:
-Loading drivers needed to access disk drives... DONE
-Searching for Puppy files in disk drives... wary_511.sfs not found. Drop ping out to initial-ramdisk console...
-/bin/sh: can't access tty; job control turned off

So then I go back in through Windows and in C:\Wary-511 there IS a wary_511.sfs there along with the other few files in that dir. I also see the gldr and Grub_GUI.gz in C:\

So any ideas of what to try? I'm kind of at the end of my rope trying to get a linux running on this laptop without any other way besides Windows installers. (Out of desperation, I've also tried the Wubi installer for Ubuntu and the Joli Windows installer... predictably, no joy with those...)

Do you think the issue may be related to this originally being a Win98 OS which was upgraded to XP? I think I read something somewhere about issues with 98...

Thanks in advance for any ideas. I think I'm gonna go try that Debian Windows installer now as a final act of desperation... I'd MUCH rather get good 'ole Puppy working though!

RSH · Joined: 05 Sep 2011 Posts: 1564 Location: Germany

shinobar · Joined: 28 May 2009 Posts: 2252 Location: Japan

Aitch · Joined: 04 Apr 2007 Posts: 6825 Location: Chatham, Kent, UK

voltaire

IF you have a floppy disc in your 570E you can boot from an external USB or CD using plop boot manager, or one of these dos boot utilities downloaded and saved to disk

http://www.bootdisk.com/usb.htm

http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanagers.html

I got a 560 and 570 running puppy 2.14x and 4.21 quite well a few years back, and even added usb2 and network via pcmcia adapters

Tough old machines, but need bios update and maxram .... Very Happy

Aitch

voltaire · Joined: 23 Feb 2012 Posts: 2

Wow, three replies in less than 24 hours, thanks guys! Before I gave up last night, I tried the Debian Windows installer and it looks like it will work, but I quit before doing any partitioning, because I want Puppy damn it!

PenguinPupLin · Joined: 23 Dec 2011 Posts: 126 Location: The Little Red Dot

Installed using the Windows Installer Slacko 531 on my friend's WinXP desktop PC. It was running fine the past few days until today when suddenly I couldn't boot into the menu after selecting "Start Puppy Linux" which returned the following error message:

Try (hd0,0): NTFS5:No grldr
Try (hd0,1):invalid or null
Try(hd0,2):invalid or null
Try(hd0.3):invalid or null
Try(fd0):invalid or null
Error:Cannot find grldr in all drives.
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart.

Tried reinstalling the 531 Windows Installer, didn't help, merely created another Slacko 531 boot code in the menu.lst

Thought it was missing the glrdr.mbr, so copied it over from another machine but no joy.

Uninstalled everything,including the pupsave as I've made a backup,then reinstalled the Windows Installer, again no luck.

Yesterday, all I did was to run the lupufy-slacko.004.pet,installed abispell for abiword and surfed the Internet;the day before,changed the avg antivirus in WinXP to avast - it was still working alright when I turned off the PC for the night.

This is somewhat embarrassing as I was intending to introduce my friend to try Slacko this way. Hope somebody can help me fix it before he comes to collect his PC back; luckily,I didn't mess up his WinXP.

Aitch · Joined: 04 Apr 2007 Posts: 6825 Location: Chatham, Kent, UK

PenguinPupLin

Check you have a puppy folder containing:
initrd.gz, vmlinuz, puppy_slacko.xxx.sfs, and slacko_save.2 or 3fs,
in your root [C:\] directory, and menu.lst....here's mine, - adjust yours to suit

PenguinPupLin · Joined: 23 Dec 2011 Posts: 126 Location: The Little Red Dot

Thanks,Aitch,you're ever ready to help. Have checked everything you pointed out and found all in order;in fact,that's how I multi-boot my puppies with WindowsXP/Vista before doing it on my friend's computer.

As I've said,it's working fine until yesterday. Despite repeated tries,including clean install after wiping out all traces of previous installs, as well as troubleshooting WinXP with checkdisk, sfc.exe, full defrag, antivirus/malware scanning,etc -- all to no avail.

All this while,WinXP is running alright and I'm using the said PC to post my reply. A search on the web revealed a few Ubuntu/Linux Mint users have encountered similar problem and their solution was to replace the /root and /swap folder that can be restored from either found.000 or dir.0000 folders or the renamed root.disk chk0000.chk but,unfortunately,the aforementioned three folders/files aren't anywhere to be seen,not even as hidden files.

Well, I'll just have to wait and see, the computer world often throws up unpredictable and strange happenings,never ceasing to catch us by surprise. Meanwhile, I hope my two other computers(one WinXP notebook and one Vista desktop) with the same setup are not hit by this anomaly.

ICPUG · Joined: 24 Jul 2005 Posts: 1277 Location: UK

The error message suggests the file grldr has been deleted from the root directory of the Windows partition:
c:\grldr

This is NOT grldr.mbr but a different file with no extension.

Aitch · Joined: 04 Apr 2007 Posts: 6825 Location: Chatham, Kent, UK

That was my first thought....as pointed out in my more detailed list of necessary files - you may have overlooked it, checking menu.lst and boot.ini contents?

PenguinPupLin · Joined: 23 Dec 2011 Posts: 126 Location: The Little Red Dot

The C:\grldr (and not grldr.mbr which may not be needed for WinXP, I think) is there all the time, and , thinking that it could be corrupted, I actually copied it over from another computer of mine with the same setup;not only that, I also tried uninstalling and reinstalling it a few times, to no avail.

Thanks,both of you for being willing to engage me on this unusual,tricky problem. As for Aitch's suggestion of using the windows installer for lupu525, I would give it a try later but have to be extra careful not to mess up my friend's WinXP.

Latest: Aitch, I just downloaded the lupu525.exe and installed it, first time in addition to Slacko531, second time uninstalled both and reinstalled only lupu525, still no joy.